Sega had really screwed over Big Red Button’s Development of Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric. Sega was in a contractual agreement to develop 3 exclusive sonic games for the Wii U. The first game was Sonic and The Lost Worlds, Mario & Sonic Olympics, and a Untitled Game.
Big Red Button had already completed Sonic Synergy, which was eventually changed to Sonic Boom. The game was developed for PC and the upcoming next Gen Consoles which were the PS4 and XBOX One. Sega wanted to finish their contract with Nintendo so they instead made Sonic Synergy become the 3rd game for the Wii U.
Big Red Button couldn’t refuse it, so they began work on porting it to the Wii U, but there was a major issue for them to tackle. The Cry Engine runs like ass on the Wii U because the Console must split is processing power with the Game Pad. Big Red Button requested that they need to delay the game to create a custom engine to port the game over to the Wii U and Sega declined because the game must release at the same time as the TV Show and Merchandise.
This created crunch time and many employees quit the studio and then massive layoffs occurred. Sega Pretty much killed this company. They had to cut massive content, and it was littered with bugs.
What you see below is Sonic Synergy early stages, it was going to be full on multiplayer, big levels to explore, massive skill trees for the character, RPG Elements, etc. The best part about Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric is the Banter between the characters. I enjoyed their personalities more than the original 3D Sonic games. It was from some of the developers of Jak and Daxter. Sonic with Jak and Daxter writing and characterization was a perfect fit. SEGA plan was to have 2 versions of Sonic, your Traditional Japanese developed sonic games, and then you Western Style Sonic Games (Sonic Boom) that would become a franchise but never happened.
The game had massive potential that we will never see attempted ever again.
